I have heard good things about the Vandy campus. I'm applying there, just not really sure I can handle the south. I'm very much the northeastern liberal elitist bastard.

Considered Cornell for undergrad abc45, and yea, the gorges do make for an impressive appearance - and I believe I remember that the law school was pretty neat as well. Of course, Ithaca, mehhh....

As a northeastern liberal now living in Nashville, I understand your reservations. Originally I had a biased view of 'the South' as being a largely rural area where characters from Deliverance are the norm. While we did have a strange incident during a roadtrip to Oxford where one of my fellow Irish-Catholics was repeatedly called "Goldstein" throughout the weekend because he has a relatively large nose, there's a huge difference between Mississsippi (or even other parts of Tennessee) and Nashville. Tennessee is only the midsouth, and Nashville is very close to what's generally viewed as the midwest-- it's equidistant between Chicago and New Orleans. Like other transplant cities, most people you meet aren't originally from here, but people are more likely to say they're from "here, but originally from X." That revelation came to me two weekends ago during the Nashville Cares art gallery fundraiser, where the director explained to me the difference between Nashville and Charlotte (another transplant city). Davidson County is very blue politically and when Congressmen try passing legislation like an English-only bill they get a lot of heat from their urban constituents. The music culture brings in a large number of very liberal groups to the city, and we have one of the larger Critical Mass gatherings in the country (nothing like Seattle or Portland, but they still manage to block up West End once a month).

Mayor Dean is also from Boston (Vandy JD) and Mayor Purcell before him (also a Vandy JD) was from Philly, showing they aren't biased against electing Yanks to political positions. The Law School also has a lot of respect from the community and we have a number of programs in place to work on economic development, immigrant/refugee rights (which is a major issue in the surrounding counties and provides for some great legal training), and green building programs. Regarding environmental progress: at the Land Trust next semester I'll be working on a carbon sequestration project for some of their board members and hopefully working with the state legislature to address climate change issues where they impact conservation. The conservation community is surprisingly strong, considering the number of major developers that have swooped in in recent years (most notably California-based Tower Investments), and the public concern is helping to hold legislators responsible and help reduce the sprawl you unfortunately see in larger cities like Atlanta or Houston. As an environmental-lawyer in training, I've been meeting more and more people in the community and have been very impressed with how organized they are. There are a number of groups for people to get involved in while you're here getting your JD to gain experience.

For what it's worth, I'm sitting next to one of my only staunch Republican friends, and even he admitted Palin was a disaster. Insofar as there are various religious groups represented, it doesn't do anything besides provide debate from time to time about First Amendment rights. I probably come off as painting Nashville as a city full of hippies, which it's not... but I would recommend you make the effort to come down and visit and gauge for yourself whether your stereotypes remain afterwards. However, if you're a New Yorker I might ask that you leave your Yankees hat at home when you visit.

While we did have a strange incident during a roadtrip to Oxford where one of my fellow Irish-Catholics was repeatedly called "Goldstein" throughout the weekend because he has a relatively large nose,

That's seriously messed up.

Yeah, I mean he was ok with it and his Vandy gear probably contributed to the hatred, but it was definitely strange having a woman telling us to "go back up north to our Yank school in Nashville." The point is, whatever misgivings people from the North have about the Deep South do not hold true for what your experience would be like in Nashville. I may change my stance on this after the Vandy/UT game this Saturday though... people from around the state will be descending upon our city and a blowout may make some of them a little angry afterwards.

re: being an Irish Catholic and being called Goldstein (let whatever derogatory Jewish term you want stand in), I've dealt with the same thing in the northeast. I'd say it's a product of things other than geographical location.

I've lived all over the country, the last 14 or 15 years south of the Mason-Dixon line (VA, NC, TX, GA, TN). However, I was born in the northeast and lived there until I was 10 or so. My family is a northeastern (moderate) family. Perhaps we're just good at adjusting, but I haven't found it to be a challenge ever. The outliers are what drive southern reputations in the NE, and you deal with very few of them in your everyday life in Nashville (or Charlotte or Chapel Hill or Raleigh or Dallas or No. VA or San Antonio or Atlanta). I use the word "deal" carefully here. I don't mean it like you "deal" with the detour on your way to school.

I think my perspective is close to most people at VULS. I think observationalist is one of the few (not too few, mind you, but not the majority) who is so in touch with the surrounding community. Yet, as you see, even he disposes of the myths.

Again, the outliers distinguish reputations in my experience, but everywhere I have lived (Nashville especially) has been full of 'normal', tolerable people. VULS' wide array of geographical representation underscores the fact that this secret is no longer a secret. You really should just come down and find out for yourself. Observationalist and I can take you out for a drink.

although...civil procedure reading is a bit easier for some reason after watching my civ pro professor on 20/20.... http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6259903. my professor comes in when the time stamp is at around -2:30, and you can see my back in the lower left corner of the wide shot of the class at about -2:22. I'm wearing a brown jacket and blue hat.

Michigan's. The architecture is beautiful, the Lawyer's Club really rounds off the whole quad, Ann Arbor is vivid, Ann Arbor is near a major airport and is a 4 hour train ride from Chicago, and the law school is right across the street from the rest of Michigan's campus, so you get some undergrad action around the law school too and that whole community feel.

Maybe it's just cliche, but I still think Yale's is the best. The university itself is absolutely gorgeous and it's right there in the city, and the law school isn't an anomaly of beauty like Michigan.

After that I'd say Columbia could be, but the law school itself is too modern looking. NYU has beautiful buildings but no real campus, Penn's campus is really nice. Virginia has the opposite problem from Michigan: the rest of the university is really pretty but I was disappointed in the aesthetics of the law building.